Chapter 42: Generally, Experts Can Keep This Guy Down

"So you have a powerful spiritual artifact in your hand, no wonder you dare to be so arrogant!" Nalan Ji burst into a wild laugh, drawing the long blade from his waist. With a sudden tremor of the blade, the surrounding curtain of rain was instantly shattered into pieces by the raw energy of his qi! Swept by the fierce wind, it transformed into a sky full of drifting mist!

"Can an ant kill an elephant just by holding a long spear?" Nalan Ji held the blade with both hands raised before his right chest, sinking slightly into a horse stance, slowly settling into his posture.

The surrounding air suddenly became viscous and heavy, as if the entire street were pinned down by an invisible, intangible, and unseen mountain!

The howling gale grew quiet in this very instant, and the entire street fell into a deathly silence!

Every raindrop seemed infused with lead, showing not the slightest sign of drifting!

Right at that moment, the long blade in Nalan Ji's hands hacked down violently. The momentum of the blade seemed slow but was practically instantaneous; the air felt as though it had solidified into steel, enveloping the wind and rain of heaven and earth as it slashed down fiercely toward Fang Qi!

Crack!

Between heaven and earth, a streak of lightning seemed to rip through the sky!

Before the blade could even arrive, the road surface around Fang Qi began to crack and shatter first!

"The Mountain Cleaving Slash?!" Lan Yan cried out in terror. "It's a Grandmaster-level martial technique!"

Despair welled up in Lan Yan's heart. She had truly lost her head just now, actually allowing Fang Qi to face a Martial Grandmaster!

Even if the rocket launcher was immensely powerful, it was still only capable of posing a threat to a Martial Grandmaster!

Under normal circumstances, a Martial Grandmaster was not a stationary target; would he not evade?

As long as the Martial Grandmaster willed it, given the speed of the rocket launcher, it would be almost impossible to hit him!

Furthermore, the rocket launcher had an ammunition limit; the one granted upon clearing the stage only had four consecutive shots, whereas a Martial Grandmaster's martial qi was as vast and boundless as the mountains and seas!

To kill a Martial Grandmaster within a mere few rockets using a rocket launcher?!

How could that be possible! Never mind a paltry few rockets, it would be difficult to achieve even with an infinite rocket launcher!

Not to mention, under such immense pressure, a mere Martial Master would not even be able to lift a hand!

Just as she thought this, her eyes suddenly widened in shock! She actually saw Fang Qi gently raise his hand and pull the trigger!

The terrifying surrounding pressure did not affect him in the slightest!

One had to know that Fang Qi's body had been enhanced by the T-Virus! Relying solely on his physical strength, he could wrestle with a Great Martial Master! Not to mention the multi-faceted growth in strength brought to him by leveling up!

Whoosh!

The rocket had only flown a few yards when it seemed to crash into an invisible wall, exploding violently!

The incomparably fierce explosion instantly tore a loophole into that omnipresent wave of qi!

Immediately following that, he pulled the trigger twice more in rapid succession!

Thunderous explosions rang out as several massive bursts of fire flared up in front of him one after another!

The immensely powerful explosive force disintegrated more than half of the opponent's blade energy in a very short span of time!

What followed closely behind were the fourth and fifth shots!

The immense recoil forced Nalan Ji back several paces. He had only just neutralized the aftermath of the explosions when he heard a sharp whistle of wind!

Without a second thought, he leaned his upper body backward!

A rocket flew past, almost brushing against his chest!

Nalan Ji's expression was cold to the absolute extreme. He finally realized that the weapon before him possessed immense power and could not be met with brute force. Such speed might be fast enough for ordinary people, but with his cultivation as a Martial Grandmaster, he could absolutely dodge it!

As long as he could catch his breath, Fang Qi's time of death would arrive!

Whoosh!

The fifth rocket arrived right on the heels of the last!

"The lower body?!" Nalan Ji hurriedly leaped into the air!

The rocket exploded on the ground beneath his feet, and a massive wave of air, carrying countless tiny shrapnel fragments, surged outward in its wake!

Whether it was the impact force generated by the massive explosion or the countless pieces of shrapnel, both were extremely difficult to defend against. If an ordinary Great Martial Master faced such an attack, it would mean almost certain death!

Yet Nalan Ji brought his long blade horizontal, and his dense martial qi gathered entirely in front of him, actually forming an incomparably rigid, invisible barrier of qi before his body!

Whether it was the shrapnel bursting in all directions or the immense shockwave caused by the explosion, all of it was firmly blocked by this solid barrier of qi!

The remnants of the air wave flowed past the left and right sides of this qi barrier, leaving Nalan Ji completely unscathed!

A succession of five rockets had actually failed to injure him in the slightest!

"It's over!" Despair filled Lan Yan's heart. It appeared she had still overestimated the power of the rocket launcher. A Martial Grandmaster did not even need to run; he only needed to block it head-on to withstand the rockets. How could anyone fight like this?

Nalan Mingxue watched the battle with a detached expression. A Martial Grandmaster—when a martial artist reached this realm, every single move and stance was utilized to absolute perfection. It was definitely not something that could be defeated merely by acquiring a good spiritual artifact!

As soon as Fang Qi ran out of ammunition, his defeat would be inevitable!

This was fundamentally an unequal battle!

To win, nothing short of a miracle would have to occur!

Rain kept beating against the barrel of the rocket launcher in Fang Qi's hands, subsequently turning entirely into bursts of rising white steam.

Although Fang Qi currently appeared to be on the offensive, he had not gained the slightest advantage!

A thick, intense killing intent flashed in Nalan Ji's eyes: "Very soon, it will be your time to die!"

But he failed to notice that Fang Qi, watching him get sent into midair by the shockwave of the explosion, slightly raised an eyebrow.

A flash of fire suddenly lit up in the darkness! Nalan Ji, who had been tossed high into the air by the impact of the explosion, seemed to actively collide into that flash of fire on his own!

Nalan Ji's face changed drastically on the spot!

Although a Martial Grandmaster possessed the ability to fly briefly, under such immense inertia and while suspended in midair, changing directions was not something that could be done at a whim!

Not to mention, the very instant Nalan Ji was blown flying, Fang Qi raised his hand and followed up with another rocket!

The timing was captured with seamless perfection!

It gave Nalan Ji absolutely no time to neutralize the impact of the explosion!

Which meant Nalan Ji had no choice but to take it head-on!

"Once I block this strike, I will definitely tear you into ten thousand pieces!" Nalan Ji's face was incredibly distorted and hideous, yet he could only gather his entire body's martial qi once more, pouring it into the blade's body to block in front of himself!

Boom!

A massive flare of fire rose into the sky. Where the fire appeared, a semi-arc qi barrier could be seen blocking all the flames entirely!

Taking a rocket head-on! Clearly, he had succeeded! The incomparably violent explosion and the countless fragments of shrapnel were all blocked before him by his dense martial qi!

Yet his body was once again heavily thrown backward by this immense impact force!

Whoosh!

The sound of tearing through the air came once more, as yet another rocket shot toward the trajectory of his flight!

The force of the explosion accurately pushed his body toward the position of the next rocket, and he could only continue to take it head-on!

Thus, in the sky, one flash of fire after another could be seen lighting up, while Nalan Ji was pushed all the way to an extremely high altitude by the sequence of explosions!

The final rocket was fired, but this time, the rocket did not seem to hit the target. In the rainy night, it was truly no longer possible to see where Nalan Ji had been blasted off to.

Fang Qi gave a slight start: "Uh... a mistake..."

Even with the T-Virus, levels, and other enhancements boosting his capabilities across the board, backed by the powerful firearm techniques learned in Resident Evil and long hours of practice, achieving this much was already his absolute limit.

Fang Qi turned around, his face a canvas of awkwardness from the botched execution as he explained to the two onlookers who stood completely dazed, "Under ordinary circumstances, a master could keep this creature airborne indefinitely... It seems I still require a bit more practice..."

Nalan Mingxue remained silent.

Lanyuan, feeling the sheer relief of having survived a brush with death, was instantly amused by Fang Qi's embarrassed display of playing the innocent victim after getting the upper hand; wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, she puffed out her cheeks and protested loudly, "Boss, I think you were just intentionally trying to show off your firearm techniques, and you failed miserably!"

"Do you not understand the concept of revealing a truth that only brings misery?" Fang Qi's face flushed with deeper embarrassment.

Nalan Mingxue's expression shifted slightly into a contemplative gaze; sending an enemy flying into the heavens with a continuous barrage of artillery? So a rocket launcher could actually be utilized in such a manner?!